SpaceX said the adjustments to its plans could bring Starlink broadband service to southern U.S. states by the end of the 2020 hurricane season, and farther out territories by the 2021 hurricane season.

Obviously put some thought into this, good communications should save lives and averts misery in hurricane affected areas.

When we catch wind we may get a tasking to respond to an event like this we will out a form requesting access to specific satellites and radio frequencies in the area. This form is submitted to people who contact all the relevant authorities and the satellite managers and shit to get approval for use.

The reason it took us so long to set up is the team that first set down on the ground at something like t+10hrs after the hurricane hit is a very small team. Usually one small plane. They assess the runway. at something like t+15 the main body moves in and opens up a runway for recovery crews, supplies, and whatever else.

Basically, we're delayed a few hours because we physically don't have the hardware on site, then delayed a few more hours unloading the aircraft holding the equipt., clearing areas for tents, setting them up to house our equipment. Then setting up takes a few hours.

Our goal is to get satcom up 12hrs after main body touches the ground.

My specific role was to ensure the ground to ground & air to ground radio communication equipment is working. I also provide the group Iridium and BGAN for data until we can get our larger equipment up. It was the most fulfilling thing i've done in my life. I hope I can do it again. I'm helping with the response to Dorian but i'm staying home for this one running some things from back here.

Also showered in water I later learned was mostly sewage so that was nice

Iridium's strength is for voice communications. While its antenna is large by cellphone standards, it does not require a pizza box sized antenna.
But, if your requirements are for data, once Starlink is operational it will be faster than even Iridium's new Certus Internet service (Certus wasn't available in 2018. It came on line earlier this year after they launched the last batch of NEXT satellites).

Say you want to create a Starlink equivalent of those skype phones that existed a few years back, would you really need to have the expected full pizza box sized antenna or would a smaller antenna not do the job well enough for relatively low bandwidth that's needed for voip?

As of present, starlink does not have the ability to have an antenna small enough for a cell phone sized device. Starlink would allow the placement of a mobile cell tower with a generator, tower, and starlink antenna for backhaul, but that's not the same as an always on satellite phone.

I'd go Starlink instead of our current VSAT link, and keep the Iridium as our backup. But that said, we're seriously considering building a terrestrial microwave link instead. To be blunt, having been involved in Satcom as long as I have been, I'm taking a serious wait-and-see when it comes to Starlink.

"It seems like VOIP over Starlink may well kill iridium in places where Starlink will have coverage."
SpaceX or some other company will have to make a hand held VoIP phone to do that. And even then, it will still be some time before Starlink has the coverage that Iridium does. When you can make a phone call over the Starlink network from McMurdo, then I would say the end is near for Iridium phone service.

Remember that Iridium is a niche player. There are some IoT applications that work fine at 22 kbs and the users don't need to or want to pay for more bandwidth. Then there's Aireon. Starlink satellites can't provide the data for Aireon, and SpaceX has said nothing about adding that capability.

Starlink seems to be geared to consumers and ISPs looking for an alternative high speed backbone. Iridium is always been for particular niche applications in business and government. Which is why I think the two will coexist for the foreseeable future.

Is that a figure from the original satellites or the NEXT satellites with the Certus Internet service. BTW: The first iteration will not be capable of the full speed the NEXT satellites can support. Iridium wrote about an upcoming software update which would support higher speeds.

Sorry, but your comment made it clear that what I wrote wasn't worth the bandwidth, hence the late edit.
Yes, you did say, "where Starlink will have coverage," and I concurred by saying when you can make a phone with Starlink from McMurdo, then Iridium's phone service is done. But, how many years before Starlink provides coverage for the North and South Poles?
Starlink will be cheaper, they won't be fully able to leverage that until they have global coverage.

There could be numerous benefits to a highspeed data connection, such as being able to get access to near-realtime imagery and satellite data (such as radarsat) or for feeding video and photos back to centralized disaster management. Or allowing disaster teams to get access to GIS information for the area [assuming it was running off the cloud, or has a generator backed up data centre]

Respectable public safety organizations rely very little on iridium handsets.

They rely almost soley on statewide land mobile raido networks. These typically have triple redundant backhauls that include wireline, terrestrial wireless, and satellite options.

Even when starlink comes around public safety agencies are rarely early adopters and will require a robust set of feature offerings such as committed data rates, prioritization, BGP or L2 routing, etc.

There is also the sticking point of the earth station terminal prices, I believe this is the biggest remaining hurdle. Currently phased array antennas are between 35k and 60k.

Oneweb is finishing development a $200-300 terminal with a $15 antenna capable of 50 Mbps. The BoM of a 35k-60k antenna is a tiny fraction of the cost. They are just recouping high R&D cost and the market is willing to pay such a high cost per unit.

I am shocked by how little media coverage Starlink is getting. The general public and the media do not get what’s coming. We could be looking at the biggest change in the telecommunications industry in decades within just 2 years...

Agree people have become inured to slow lossy expensive internet because they can't do without it. SpaceX really are rolling out the future with ubiquitous fast connectivity, definitely have social impact.

You still need ground equipment, a simple one like a cellphone to communicate with a GEO sat.
But for a LEO constellation you need a complex tracking antenna, or phased pizza-box when it will exist.
In this specific case, the few 10's of ms of latency reduction that LEO brings are not mandatory.

A few 10s of ms? It takes 240ms roundtrip to ONE geosynchronous satellite, and routing between them takes even longer. In Afghanistan I was getting 800ms to the US. LEO satellites have 1-2ms round trip and will have less distance to cover in routing between them. We're talking hundreds of milliseconds difference here, and a huge boost to bandwidth.

That is a good point about the antenna, however for emergency purposes you can easily have them stationed in vehicles or outposts with long range WiFi. I'm curious to see how small the antennas end up getting, if they get to a point you can carry one on a backpack or something.

US DoD has WGS (Wideband Global Satcom) which is a series of 8? X-Band geostationary satellites that cover the planet. It’s also used (and partially funded) by allies including Canada and Australia. UK MoD has the SkyNet constellation, NATO has yet more satellites. This doesn’t include those that are owned/operated by (potential) adversaries such as China and Russia.

DoD also realized how useful Iridium was, and basically kept the system afloat when it was about to be scuttled by giving them a sweetheart IDIQ contract. (Indefinite Duration/Indefinite Quantity). DoD also has their own private Iridium network terminal located at DISA faciilities in Hilo, HI. This basically means that DoD Iridium phones act like an extension of DSN, rather than being on the civilian phone network.

Depends - they may sell in that range at a loss with say, a 2 year contract. But if you really want cheap then it has to be made in China. I'm not so sure I trust Chinese made Starlink ground terminals to not have some elicit hidden chip used for subterfuge. :P

By that same logic why can't we make an Airbus for $200-300? More advanced teach with mass production could do it!

There are limits to the economics of scale is my point, using it as the reason a price can be reduced hundereds of times over is nonsense.

To a point EoS, Supply chain simplification, and mfg processes can reduce price, but there are limits depending on the type of product being produced.

To go from over $50,000 to $200 bucks in a couple years is almost surely fantasy. At first the terminals will be a few thousand dollars (still a major feat) and the service will be focused on Government, PS, and Enterprise. As the economics scale better and mfg improves maybe they can keep getting that price down?

Not all electronics are created equally. There is more to it then economics of scale. Radio electronics, especially for satcom require super tight operating margins, which increases the cost quite a bit.

Satellite transmitters are produced in VERY large quantities, they are still many hundreds of dollars for example.

Anyway not saying you're wrong, just saying it's a bad example. If for the cost of a car you can truck in a fast high broadband wifi hotspot to a disaster zone that's still pretty incredible. Also towns in places at risk could prepare in advance by already having one with a backup generator, and when going's are good it's just a useful service, but it doesn't go down when the intercity lines do.

Honestly I believe for the next 3-5 years starlink will be primarily focused on public safety, military, and commerical applications. You are not off base at all in that thinking.

The service you are describing is a huge market for geostationary satellites as is.

Geostationary service can actually be VERY good but the price is outside of the range of the consumer market.

You would be surprised to know that a huge number of cell towers worldwide actually use satellite as their primary backhaul.

The Land mobile radio networks nationwide (how police and dispatch communicate via radio) have triple backhauls typically (wireline, terrestrial microwave, and satellite microwave). That is why these networks are SUPER resilient to natural disasters and localized outages.

There are similar but obviously more capable antennas on Starlink satellites right now. Elon already put the cost of a satellite as less than launch - so maybe $300k max. The satellites have 3 antennas.

Now put this in perspective with mass produced consumer terminals. Given that there is nothing inherently expensive about the base materials I see no reason costs should not scale down significantly. The fact that they cost 55,000 now is not super relevant any more.

The transponders on the SpaceX satellites arent 'special' they are just like any other space hardened transponder that operates in Ku/Ka. They have X amount of EIRP and Y G/T which when combined with the earth station varibales produces a modulation threshold that can be achieved, this pretty much 'sets' the subscription pricing model.

This shows the limitation of your understanding in satellite communications and RF physics. The satellites don't use phased arrays to communicate but instead normal transponders that generate a set footprint that moves as the satellite does. The earth station tracks a satellite as its footprint moves over the earth station until its near its beam edge, then switches (seamlessly ideally) to a new satellite, this requires a phased array on the earth station.

Your entire comparison is off base. What they did was make mass producable low earth communication satellites, which is a feat yes, but you must remember that they are going from production volumes of 1, to production volumes of a few thousand. Where there is significant room for economics of scale.

Economics of scale are NOT linear and taper off dramatically once production volume already exists at a reasonable high number (like PA's currently are).

There actually IS something inherently expensive about phased array antenna components and assembly. They require extensive calibrations and very precise manufacturing. There is a reason they have remained expensive even though there has been MANY markets for phased array antennas for decades.

They cost $55,000 now in an established market, with reasonable high volume per year, that is ABSOLUTELY relevant to any theoretical discussion on improved economics of scale.

That comment was badly written. They use phased arrays as the transponder antenna on the SpaceX satellites. That being said they aren't actively tracking in the same way the earth station does.

Not all phased arrays are created equal, the satellite site PAs will be used most likely to change footprints or modify the uplink / downlink site since this network will operate as a traditiona bent pipe until the interlink is proven.

That being said they aren't actively tracking in the same way the earth station does.

Not quite sure why you think they are not active tracking. Listen to Elon has actually said, just for once. In the limit bandwidth is unlimited as it would be by laser communication. While that is an obvious exaggeration as he said "in the limit" he is making a point.

I am pretty sure they are actively tracking. Take every thing you think you know about commsats and throw it in the trash where starlink is concerned.

A new architecture for satcom such as LEO constellations does not warrant "take every thing you know about commsats and throw it in the trash".

It is still microwave physics after all. They don't change because Elon decided to get involved.

They aren't active tracking because there is no need to be. They are using phased arrays on the satellites so that they can make footprint modifications as the constellation grows, narrowing or widening them to create higher spot beam energies (EIRP & G/T).

To answer your intial comment. The reason I think they aren't active tracking is I am a microwave engineer for a satellite corporation that not only provides airtime services but works closely on space microwave systems. The spaceX satellites have phased arrays but they will NOT actively track, as its pointless. This isn't even a knock or disadvantage, there is just no reason for the satellites to track a spot on earth, that is the whole point in launching thousands.

Think about it. Why would a satellite MOVING through the sky try and track a single point on earth. The earth station tracks the satellite, not the other way around. Once the earth station is nearing the beam edge it transitions to a new satellite, this is what requires active tracking.

I wish this sub or the starlink sub would let a satcom engineer do an AMA on satellite communications. There is a LOT of false information going around, and its just constantly circulating. With the rocket science side of things there are lot of 'internet experts' that actually know there stuff with youtube channels and stuff that help quell the sillyness, but in satcom not so much!!!

Stick a pizza-box Starlink antenna on top of trucks headed in with the emergency crews. Or stick it on a 4G repeater that you can drop in place to re-establish local (not sat phone) communications. Or in advance of hurricane season, ensure you've deployed Starlink antennas to hospitals, fire, polie, where requested.

Interesting, hadn't seen that, although Wikipedia notes it's a bit more fiddly than Iridium:

Due to the relatively high gain of the antennas contained within handsets, it is necessary to roughly aim the antenna at the satellite. As the handsets contain a GPS receiver it is possible to program the ground position of the satellites as waypoints to assist with aiming.

StarLink operates in the 14GHz band (Ku-Band) which is shared with geostationary satellites. In order to not interfere with stationary satellites, they need to direct their signal away from the geostationary arc.

"SpaceX said the adjustments to its plans could bring Starlink broadband service to southern U.S. states by the end of the 2020 hurricane season, and farther out territories by the 2021 hurricane season."
This is marketing verbage. It's easier to carry an Iridium phone than a device which requires a pizza box size antenna.
I wonder if this was SpaceX's plan from the beginning, but they wanted to get the first batch of satellites up and empirically verify that the system would work with fewer satellites in each ring?

Agree, phase array antenna could be large but we haven't seen any examples yet. No doubt SpaceX will do everything possible to minimize size to reduce cost. Know they say pizza box size but SpaceX often change things up if they find a better way. Oh well, should know soon enough.

It has to do with the maximum allowed beamwidth. Due to physics (diffraction limit) a 1m antenna can produce about a 1.5 degree beamwidth at 14GHz. For normal operations on commercial satellites, this is the minimum required beamwidth to transmit. Yes, you can go to 60cm or so, but at the cost of reduced spectral flux density).

Anyhow, it’s physics that are dictating the antenna size here, rather than technological advancement.

Cost of the pizza box sized antenna isn't so much the issue as having it not blow away in hurricane force winds (since they mentioned hurricane season).
But you're right about "should know soon enough." If SpaceX expects to go live with this late next year. They've got to be close to finalizing the first iteration of the antenna and the satellite modem (not sure if they have a name for the box. If you have Internet from a cable TV provider, you call it a "cable modem." If you have Internet from a satellite, why not call the box a "satellite modem?")

I'm thinking more of the equivalent of an Iridium phone. EverythingIsNormal thinks that the Starlink antenna could be significantly smaller. If the antenna can be small enough that you can make a hand held VoIP phone, then Starlink can move into the telephony services market which Iridium has.

Yes. For the same reason FIOS was rolled out to the most densely populated areas first.
You start where you have the most customers, and then you once you've got the "low hanging fruit," you expand and cover the less densely populated areas. Not so great if you live in one of those less densely populated areas, but it's a smart business choice.

In this case though, I don't know if it would necessarily work that way?

Landline ISPs have to lay cable everywhere they want paying customers. The more cable they have to lay, the more the price goes up. For Starlink, once the satellites are up, they're up.

The more people trying to connect to a specific satellite, the more the bandwidth gets carved up. It might be that if Starlink tried to cover something like NYC, the satellite would get overwhelmed every time it passed over.

So in this case, there might actually be a cap on how much density they want to cover, and not roll it out to highly-populated metro areas vs. just selling to lots of rural customers.

In densely populated areas (e.g. cities and some suburbs), by this time the cable is already in place. You have to maintain it, but that cost is amortized over a large number of customers supporting each mile of cable. The cost is not that bad.
At least initially, for Starlink, once the satellites are up, they may be up for only five years. That's the design lifespan. SpaceX figures that five years from now they'll have something substantially better to put in orbit. So there will be on going costs for SpaceX too.

Because you've got such a high density of customers in a area like NYC, at least initially, my money is on the companies that have media in place all ready. Starlink satellites won't get overwhelmed when they pass over metropolitan areas because they won't have many customers in those areas.

Yes, the previous comment was actually incorrect. It was rolled out to densely populated and Wealthy areas first. Even within a city it was deployed to the wealthier areas first and skipped many poor dense sectors completely. That's because the last mile is the most expensive and you need a large percentage of the eligible neighborhood to actually sign up for it too. And if it's very expensive, a lot of people won't m

There will be plenty of low density areas covered by the LEO satellites, they aren't fixed over specific high density areas. (Yes, there will be holes in that coverage at certain latitudes, but these changes sounds like it reduces those early gaps significantly)

It is simple orbital mechanics. They begin with 53° inclination so they cover mostly populated areas. By nature of the orbit the density is biggest around 53° and less dense towards the equator. Which means to cover equatorial regions fully it takes more sats, which means it takes longer to launch that many.

To cover polar regions they need higher inclination orbits with sats that spend much of their time covering very low population density areas so they do that later.

this YouTube video shows how the sats concentrate and that coverage is lower at the equator.

They can't really target a region..they can only target latitudes. And if they clever Western Europe and North America that means they cover everything between roughly 50 degrees north and 50 degrees south. Which means 95% of the world's population.
But they will start with lower latitudes initially.

The startups have to prove themselves while Iridium works reliably right now. Most companies will want to wait and see how this all plays out and whether or not it is worth it and safe enough to switch to these new services. Until then, they will happily pay Iridium a lot of money for a product that works for the business today.

Right. I think Matt Desch is rather like Elon Musk in some ways, he has talked about a third generation of Iridium satellites being developed. Here is a video, any other good ones?
https://youtu.be/1bMpGMwIH48

"Yeah but is it still 12x 2400bps Iridium modems teamed together for a whopping 28.8kbps?"
No. The new NEXT satellites can support low range broadband speeds (~1 Mbps). That's why Iridium has been pushing the Certus brand name for its new Internet service to distinguish it from the sub dial modem data rate of the original satellites.

Could somebody explain to me how they are going to achieve three orbital planes from one launch?

“SpaceX has since told the FCC it realized it can use a single launch to deploy Starlink satellites in three different orbital planes, rather than placing an entire batch in the same ring around the Earth.”

They will inject all of them at 350 km(*). 22 of them will starting raising orbit right away, 22 others will start in 10 days and 7 hours, the remaining 22 will wait for 20 days and 14 hours. Nodal precession will spread the groups 5 degrees apart.

(*) Despite injecting the first batch at 443 km, in the latest filing we are discussing they wrote: Moreover, due to SpaceX’s decision to minimize risk by using the low injection altitude of 350 km, in the unlikely event any satellites after the initial launch experience immediate failure upon deployment, they would decay to the point of demise very quickly – as little as two weeks to at most eight months depending on the solar cycle. None of this is in any way changed by the proposed modification.

When they say, "As SpaceX previously stated, all Starlink satellites launched after the first deployment will be fully demisable upon atmospheric re-entry, and no components will survive to reach the Earth’s surface", is that referring to the one launch that has already occurred or are they still launching satellites like that?

Here in Australia the highest speeds I can get are 20mbs up, 3mbs down for $100/month on a 24 month locked in contract. Now keep in mind that this is on Australia's brand new infrastructure that cost something like 51 billion to make. Gonna jump to starlink when I can.

Starlink satellites spread into their slots along the orbit individually, by timing their orbit raising individually. (Since orbital period depends on the height of the orbit, the position in the final orbit can be easily varied by staying in the intermediate orbit for shorter or longer time.) Changing the orbital plane is more difficult.

Of course, orbital plane does change on its own due to oblateness of earth (which is what allows sun-synchronous orbits to precess synchronously with rotation of the earth around the sun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-synchronous_orbit ) but in this case plane change would depend on the slightly different rate of precession of different orbits.

I think it is entirely possible that SpaceX intends to release the satellites in groups of 22, with second stage performing burns between the deployments, to facilitate establishing required plane orientation for the group and whatever secondary payloads may accompany it. SpaceX has already demonstrated second stage capability to preform four burns in the STP-2 mission (assuming this will also be possible for Falcon 9 second stage): https://www.spacex.com/STP-2

Thnx for all the useful links. But I think this is only true if you presuppose the sats are already in a 550km circular orbit. In that case, the rate of precession of all orbits is indeed so simular that plane change maneuvres are costly in delta-V. But after being deployed at 440km, precession is different, especially when the orbit is eccentric. So then plane changes can take quite some time, but only minimal delta-V. That is what Iridium did too, they were not launching all sats in their final plane either. SpaceX needs to do this too anyway, because they're not launching 66 sats each time. Furthermore, when they'd release them in groups of 22, they'd need a different deployment mechanism.

Also, check the numbers in the link you gave, RAAN doesn't differ between 53 and 57.6, there's one at 16, one at 42 and a quite a few around 30 degrees.

(Edit: but no engineer, so maybe I misunderstood some things, at least here's the formula for precession which depends on orbit and eccentricity. Didn't try the calculations though for the difference between an 440km and a 550km orbit, or an eccentric orbit with 440km perigee and 550km apogee.)

You are absolutely right -- the plane of these orbits precesses at about 4 degrees per day, and if the orbit is higher or lower, this causes a difference in the rate of precession. For example, at this inclination, 450 km circular orbit would precess 5% faster than a 550 km orbit, and the planes would diverge at about 0.2 degrees per day.

In the above list there are orbits for the active satellites, for the satellites which are being de-orbited, and for the debris produced during the deployment, i.e the four braces/wire harnesses which connected the satellites together in the stack:

I think you are underestimating the effect altitude has on nodal precession. By my calculations keeping a sat at an altitude of 450 km will cause it to shift 5 degrees relative to the main constellation at 550 km in just 21 days. Also, as you point out they have already separated the orbits of the existing sats by 4.6 degrees so clearly this is not an issue.

While stage 2 performing multiple burns to get the sats into their required plane orientation would certainly be quicker, I think it is unlikely. The main reason is that the landing being so far down range on the last starlink launch strongly suggests that it was close to the recoverable capacity of a f9, with little to spare for on orbit maneuvers.

I agree with you completely -- launching into different planes is too costly. But launching to a different altitude in the same plane to facilitate plane change by differential precession is certainly possible.

If all satellites start from the same deployment orbit, to get another 5 degrees would of course take another such duration (to produce 0 degrees, 5 degrees offset and 10 degrees offset orbital planes for the three batches).

But if one could start with one batch at around 400 km, another near 550 km , and the last one around 700 km, that would allow to finalize the position of the satellites in the three planes 5 degrees apart by spending about a month in these intermediate orbits on top of about 3 weeks it takes to rise the orbit:

But launching to a different altitude in the same plane to facilitate plane change by differential precession is certainly possible.

The idea is not compatible with debris mitigation. Per the filing: Moreover, due to SpaceX’s decision to minimize risk by using the low injection altitude of 350 km, in the unlikely event any satellites after the initial launch experience immediate failure upon deployment, they would decay to the point of demise very quickly – as little as two weeks to at most eight months depending on the solar cycle. None of this is in any way changed by the proposed modification.

Despite injecting the first batch at 443 km SpaceX reiterates that the injection altitude will be 350 km (same as in the original filing). Days to move satellites to the adjacent plane:

I thought the Starlink orbital planes all had the same inclination, so it was as very tiny cost. (Indeed, the wikipedia page is called "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_inclination_change" to emphasize that it's the inclination change that is key.) I didn't think the precession takes all that much time, either, if you can raise and lower your orbit. Do you know the timescale?

Edit: My back-of-the-envelope is that if you change your orbital radius by x% then you will precess a full rotation in 24h*x%. So if you raise your orbit by 200 km it only takes roughly a month.

I think you are thinking of moving the satellite's path with respect to the ground. Changing the orientation of the orbital plane with respect to the stars by 5 degrees would take rather more than a few orbits.

More precisely, the orbital planes of Starlink constellation precess with respect to the stars at about 4 degrees per day, but this precession is the same for all these satellites if they are at the same altitude circuilar orbits of the same inclination. To move some satellites into another plane, they indeed can be put lower or higher using arbitrary small delta-V, but the wait will be considerable -- 450 km orbit precession is 5% faster than that of 550 km orbit, so it takes about 20 days to achieve 5 degrees plane separation.

Besides just spreading the satellites out, are they doing anything else that isn't so obvious? I assume they must be confident in intersattelite communication? Seems like moving into more planes means that the laser communication system and protocol has to be extremely robust.

As far as we know there were laser links on the 2 test sats, Tintin A and B. I think they skipped them because that way they can deploy a working constellation sooner. Also the mirrors would not burn up on reentry and could potentially be a hazard for people on the ground. They will switch materials. Goal is that nothing reaches the ground when a sat reenters.

I assume it means they are confident that they can survive in their parking orbit for a longer time with their given fuel reserves, which means they can wait for precession to take them to different planes. The first batch didn't have laser comms so it would seem premature to have growing confidence in the system, before they've even flown it. But idk.

They don't need interlinks to start service, if they are willing to set up gateways in each geographical coverage area. It's likely the majority of early adopters [who can pay more] are in affluent western markets and within reach of a major (enough) centre to setup a gateway without excessive capital outlays.

Most of their commercial customers likely don't need the interlinks - like cell phone companies and regional ISPs looking for backhaul and last mile connectivity (or last 100 mile connectivity)

The one market segment they can not serve is long haul internet backbone. Which will be a major revenue source and distinguishes Starlink from other providers at least near term. But it seems getting to an initial service ASAP is more important, probably for access to frequencies.

That's true, but if that capability is another year out (or more), they can start generating revenues immediately and improve the satellite software and hardware based on real world use, and then when laser links are ready they can "cheaply" deploy the interlink capability on a couple Starship launches. Then prioritize backhaul and high-service level traffic on those satellites, and keep using the non-interlink generations of satellites for local [and bounced] traffic until their replacement or EOL retirement.

Starting early also helps them secure customers that might otherwise go with OneWeb, who also doesn't have interlink capabilities [in this generation]

I understand the previous deployment mode would cover Alaska with the possible exception of the extreme north and the northern States of the continental US. This would not change, just coverage would stretch out to the whole US.

Just a reminder that you can use my site to generate either simulated sky charts or simulated orbital elements of the Starlink constellation while specifying the number of orbital planes, number of satellites within each plan, and the altitude for each shell with up to 3 shells.http://howmanystarlinkswillfillyoursky.com/